What Exactly Is Phishing?

Phishing is a social engineering technique where attackers deceive individuals into performing harmful actions such as:

• Clicking malicious links

• Opening infected attachments

• Sharing personal or organisational credentials

• Approving fraudulent payments

• Providing sensitive business information

These attacks typically masquerade as legitimate messages from trusted entities, including banks, cloud platforms, managers, HR departments, government institutions, vendors, or even coworkers.

Phishing works because it exploits human trust, urgency, fear, curiosity, and routine behaviour.

Why Phishing Attacks Are So Effective

Cybercriminals consistently succeed with phishing because:

1. They rely on human psychology

People make quick decisions under pressure. Attackers exploit emotions such as urgency (“Your account will be suspended”), fear (“Unusual activity detected”), and reward (“You’ve won a gift!”).

2. Phishing is cheap and scalable

One attacker with a laptop can send millions of phishing emails at almost no cost.

3. Attackers now use AI

Generative AI enables cybercriminals to produce personalised messages with perfect grammar, realistic personas, cloned voices, and targeted hooks.

4. Organisations rely heavily on email and remote collaboration tools

This increases the number of communication channels attackers can exploit.

5. Users are overwhelmed with digital fatigue

Busy employees can fall for even amateur-level phishing attempts when multitasking.

Common Types of Phishing Attacks in 2025

Cybercriminals use different forms of phishing. Understanding them strengthens your defence posture.

1. Email Phishing

The classic method, fraudulent emails appearing legitimate.
Often used to steal passwords or spread malware.

2. Spear Phishing

Targeted at a specific person or department, using personalised details to increase believability.
E.g., “Hi David, here is the invoice you asked me to process urgently.”

3. Whaling (CEO Fraud)

High-level executives are impersonated to approve payments or authorise data access.
Common in finance, HR, and procurement departments.

4. Smishing

Phishing delivered through SMS or WhatsApp.
Messages such as: “Your package is awaiting confirmation, click here.”

5. Vishing (Voice Phishing)

Phone calls that impersonate banks, government agencies, or internal teams.
AI voice cloning is making vishing more dangerous.

6. Business Email Compromise (BEC)

Attackers compromise or spoof a real corporate account to deceive colleagues or clients.
BEC attacks account for billions in global financial losses yearly.

7. Clone Phishing

An attacker replicates a real email previously received by the victim but replaces attachments or links with malicious ones.

8. OAuth Phishing

Instead of stealing passwords, attackers trick users into giving access permissions to malicious applications (common with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace).

Real-World Impact of Phishing Attacks

Phishing attacks can lead to:

• Financial loss (fraudulent transactions, ransomware payments)

• Credential theft and lateral movement within networks

• Data breaches and regulatory penalties (GDPR, PCI-DSS, NIS2, HIPAA)

• Downtime and operational disruption

• Loss of customer trust and brand reputation

• Compromised OT/ICS environments in critical infrastructure sectors

In sectors like energy, telecoms, and water utilities, where IT and OT systems intersect, phishing poses a direct operational risk capable of affecting safety, continuity, and national infrastructure integrity.

How Organisations Can Protect Themselves from Phishing

Below are the most effective and practical controls that modern organisations should adopt:

1. Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Even if a user’s credentials are stolen, MFA adds a protective barrier.
However, organisations should now prefer phishing-resistant MFA such as:

• FIDO2 hardware keys

• WebAuthn

• Certificate-based authentication

  
  

2. Use Advanced Email Security Filters

Modern email gateways can detect:

• Malicious URLs

• Spoofed domains

• Suspicious attachments

• Known phishing campaigns

• AI-generated patterns

Tools like Secure Email Gateways (SEGs), sandboxing, and behavioural AI enhance detection.

3. Deploy Security Awareness Training & Simulations

Training must be continuous and realistic, covering:

• How to identify phishing, smishing, and spear phishing

• How to handle suspicious messages

• How to report incidents

• Executive-level whaling simulations

• OT-specific phishing scenarios
  Awareness increases user vigilance across the entire organisation.

  
  

4. Enable Domain & Email Authentication Controls

Protect your organisation’s domain from being spoofed:

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)

• DMARC enforcement

• BIMI for brand protection

  
  

5. Implement Zero Trust Access Controls

Never trust, always verify.
A compromised account should not automatically access sensitive applications or networks.

6. Monitor Identity Behaviour with UEBA

User and Entity Behaviour Analytics detect unusual activities such as:

• Logins from unusual locations

• Sudden large file downloads

• New OAuth grants

• Privilege misuse

This helps identify attacks even after credentials are stolen.

7. Build a Rapid Incident Response Process

A powerful anti-phishing strategy includes:

• Automated isolation of suspicious emails

• Clear reporting pathways

• Playbooks for BEC, ransomware, and credential compromise

• Forensics and threat hunting

• Executive-level communication plans

Organisations with mature incident response reduce breach impact significantly.

Phishing in the Age of AI: Attackers Are Getting Smarter

AI has profoundly changed the phishing landscape. Attackers now use:

• AI-written emails with near-perfect grammar

• Deepfake voice calls mimicking executives

• Automated spear-phishing that targets thousands of employees with personalised details harvested from social media

• Chatbot-based phishing on websites and messaging platforms

This makes traditional defences insufficient without a layered, adaptive security model.

How CoreDefense Helps Organisations Strengthen Their Anti-Phishing Strategy

CoreDefense supports organisations with:

• Threat-informed training

• Email security configuration reviews

• Zero Trust advisory

• Incident response and forensic support

• Security operations workflow optimisation

• Governance & policy development

• Risk-based phishing assessments

• AI-powered threat triage and reporting (via COREXAI visual explainers)

Our approach blends technical controls, human resilience, and strategic governance, ensuring organisations stay ahead of rapidly evolving threats.

Practical Checklist: How Employees Can Spot Phishing Emails Quickly

Use the S.L.A.M. method to help teams rapidly identify suspicious messages:

S — Sender

Is the email from a legitimate address? Is the domain slightly altered?

L — Links

Hover before clicking.
Does the URL redirect to a suspicious or unfamiliar website?

A — Attachments

Unexpected attachments, especially ZIP, EXE, HTML files, are major red flags.

M — Message

Does the message create urgency, fear, or reward?
Are there grammatical inconsistencies or unusual requests?